9/28/11 N.Y. St. Reg. CFS-30-11-00009-A
PURSUANT TO THE PROVISIONS OF THE State Administrative Procedure Act, NOTICE is hereby given of the following action:
Action taken:
Amendment of section 415.9(j)(1); repeal of section 415.9(j)(3); and addition of new section 415.9(j)(3) to Title 18 NYCRR.
Statutory authority:
Social Services Law, sections 20(3)(d), 34(3)(f), 410(1); and title 5-C
Subject:
Child Care Market Rate Regulations.
Purpose:
To revise the market rates in accordance with State and Federal requirements.
Text or summary was published
in the July 27, 2011 issue of the Register, I.D. No. CFS-30-11-00009-P.
Final rule as compared with last published rule:
No changes.
Text of rule and any required statements and analyses may be obtained from:
Public Information Office, NYS Office of Children and Family Services, 52 Washington Street, Rensselaer, NY 12144, (518) 473-7793
Assessment of Public Comment
The Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) received one comment from a child care provider. The commentator stated that child care providers need to be reimbursed on a timely basis for registration fees, and when a child is absent from a child care program. The commentator also stated that she believed family day care providers and group family day care providers should be paid the same rate as day care centers. Additionally, the commentator stated that established neighborhood rates should be taken into consideration when determining the market rate and should be comparable to other existing neighborhood rates.
OCFS reviewed the comment, and determined after review that reimbursement for registration fees and child absences are not addressed in this regulatory proposal, but are addressed in 05 OCFS ADM 03 and in Title 18 of the Official Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York section 415.6, respectively. Family and group family day care providers are each a separate legal entity and can only be reimbursed at their rates, not day care center rates. Finally, the market rates are based on a local market rate survey, which are analyzed and the rates from the survey are clustered into five district groupings of counties. Neighborhood groupings, if done statewide, would result in samples that were too small to be statistically representative of the specific modality of care, its duration, and the age of child being served. As a result, OCFS determined that no changes to the proposed regulations were required in response to this comment.
